SUSSEX INDUSTRIAL HISTORY C11RI5T ' S HOSPITAL 5oUTHWATER Dining Ka,tL , Court 12,cooi . a.Kd Wak~r Tow.x Q Q.G. Mar~Y H.A. Waller & Sons — Electrical Generation at High Salvington — C.V.A./Kearney & Trecker — Cocking Lime Works — Nutley Windmill — Longleys at Christs Hospital PRICE £3.95 ISSUE 33 2003 SUSSEX INDUSTRIAL HISTORY Journal of the Sussex Industrial Archaeology Society THIRTY THREE 2003 Page H.A. WALLER & SONS OF WHITECROSS STREET, BRIGHTON 2 John Redfern WIND-POWERED ELECTRICAL GENERATION, HIGH SALVINGTON 6 Roger Ashton C .V.A. / KEARNEY & TRECKER 10 Peter Groves COCKING LIME WORKS 23 Ron Martin NUTLEY WINDMILL – A DENDROCHRONOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION 32 M .C. Bridge JAMES LONGLEY & Co AND THE BUILDING OF CHRIST'S 36 HOSPITAL, WEST HORSHAM Peter Longley Edited by Dr. Brian Austen, 1 Mercedes Cottages, St . John's Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 4EH (Tel . 01444 413845) . The Editor would be interested to hear from prospective contributors of articles of any length. Shorter notices can be included in the Society's Newsletter which is issued four times a year. The annual subscription to the Sussex Industrial Archaeology Society is £10 payable on 1 April. Life membership is available at fifteen times the annual subscription . Members are entitled to copies of the Sussex Industrial History and the Newsletters without further charge. Membership enquiries to the Hon . Secretary, R .G . Martin, 42 Falmer Avenue, Saltdean, Brighton BN2 8FG (Tel. 01273 271330). ISSN 0263 5151 © SIAS on behalf of the contributors H .A . WALLER & SONS of WHITECROSS STREET, BRIGHTON A brief history of a family firm John Redfern In a world of corporate business, far-flung enterprise, bids, take-overs and mergers, it is hard to recall the era of private enterprise, personal drive, application, self- denial and sheer hard work of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries . Brighton, like many towns of similar capacity, well-versed already in the world of leisure and entertainment, expanding in many directions with an excellent connection to the capital, offered opportunity to verve and talent . Henry Waller had both. Henry Arthur Waller was born in Kemp Street in 1881 Fig 1 The Family: left to right: one of nine children, son of a painter and decorator John, Gordon, H .A., Geoffrey, Donald . (Brighton Standard) who also undertook small building works, and this central busy part of Brighton was to remain the focus off slightly in the wrong direction : leave Whitecross of his long career . At 14 he was apprenticed to W .A. Street, drop down to Sydney Street, go on to Gooding, sheet metal worker and electrical engineer, Kensington Street, continue down Jubilee Street (gone (Gooding himself was at one-time apprenticed to now and site of the new public library) or Regent W . Skeat of Queen's Road and Windsor Street), a Street, through New Road into East Street on to The prestigious firm whose extensive premises were Front and double back westerly towards Hove and located in Upper Russell Street, forgotten now and gentler inclines. Bear Road, Elm Grove, Southover submerged beneath the sprawling shopping complex Street and Albion Hill were challenges of another order. of Churchill Square. John Waller his son recalls such a trek, and with good In 1902, after seven years with W .A. Gooding, Henry reason: "In 1938 : I left Whitecross Street at 0600 hrs. Waller aged 21 started on his own in Whitecross Street and pushed a barrow to Shoreham loaded with sheets where he had a brother on the premises . Work was of zinc plus fire pots, all tools to lay the flat roof . The routine, although one had to be versatile and man [who should have assisted, but stayed put] lived resourceful and prepared to undertake a challenge: in Shoreham so I was on my own . We laid the zinc in roof and kitchen work, pots and pans, surface the same day, which meant that I had to push the canopies, chimney cowls, always a lucrative source of barrow back to the works, reaching the shop around work, traditional Brighton patterns of which he had 2000 hrs. – a very long day (I was only 15 years old at brought from Gooding. (See Sussex Industrial the time). This was common then, a walk of about 12 History 31, 2002). Between 1914 and 1918, then miles." "One had to be agile and quick-thinking", married, he was directed into work of national recalled Wally Vinall, who died in 2001, long importance, employed by Bolton and Paul in Norwich employed in the firm, and later by Percy Vye in Hove. (who made aircraft), working on the bench, but soon "Scaffolding was rarely used for straightforward jobs. to take over the running of the workshop and, after Ladders and planks and some leaping on occasion that, back to Whitecross Street. from roof to roof (undeclared to one's employers) usually got one through the day." Similarly tough was By 1914 Henry Waller's reputation in the trade was one of John Waller's first jobs, to scale the steep roof of established and from 1918 the business went from the large building that dominates the skyline on the strength to strength. It was hard work and long days. corner of Belgrave Street and Southover Street to fix The steep streets, narrow lanes, "cats' creeps" and two large rotating Archimedean ventilators on the steps of Brighton generated various strategies for sur- ridge, particularly daunting not only in height and vival. It seems almost incomprehensible now that heavy incline but also in the slippery wintry frost-covered equipment, materials and ladders were propelled by slates – but one got used to it. hand in a choice of two barrows . Even a straight- forward journey, say to Hove, was not necessarily that Transport was slow to come, not in fact until after the straightforward . To minimise exertion one might start Second World War . One usually got to site on foot 2 with tool bag over one's shoulder or by cycle. Apart from Geoffrey, the youngest, Henry Waller's Occasionally the builder could be persuaded to use his three other sons were educated at Pelham School . John van and really large work was, by arrangement, at 14 and in his last year recalls the school being conveyed by Bartup of Trafalgar Street . Eventually the closed, prior to being re-built; he assisted with a firm lashed out on a Ford Transit, in turn displaced by Waller's barrow in carrying various paraphernalia for a van and finally a Bedford lorry. safe keeping until the new school was completed . The boys brought impetus to the business and expanded the work force . Their individual contributions to the continuing success of the firm were considerable. Gordon applied himself to roofing, cowls and general work, at 18 going into the office undertaking pricing, measuring and associated tasks ; Donald, a good welder, offered general work and iron work such as gates and railings ; John turned to zinc and general galvanised work, cowls and enjoyed delicate and exacting commissions; Geoffrey, physically less robust than his brothers, like John, interested in more artistic work, when demobilised from the Royal Engineers, Fig . 2 Part of the workshop . The big "B" is one of many for went into the office (Fig. 1). Montague Burton, familiar throughout the country: "Tailoring with Taste" . (Brighton Standard) The firm continued to thrive and after their demobilisation in 1945 and when all four sons had Fig . 3 Stairwell – County Hall, Truro An exacting commission in stainless steel that 'rusted' . The over-zealous cleaning staff regularly scoured the rails with wire wool . Special measures from Brighton restored the finish. (Camera Craft, Truro) 3 trolleys, kitchen water tanks for caravans, specially devised cooling tanks for Iraq, storage cabinets for firms and factories all came within the astonishing range of Wallers . "There was simply no repetition . We did one job one day and a totally different one the next." The list of metals employed was equally varied: sheet iron, copper, corrugated iron, galvanised iron, bronze, brass, tinplate, lead coating, stainless steel and tinned copper all carried out with gas welding, and cutting, electric arc welding and many other operations, new ideas and techniques constantly taken on board. Fig . 4 John and Donald (centre & right) on one of the "onions" of the Palace Pier . (Brighton Standard) returned to Whitecross Street, the range and scale of the work began to change . Large contracts of much more involved nature began to arrive . The gradual recovery from the privations of wartime accelerated the development of new technologies . Urgently needed blocks of flats and housing complexes al:)peared, small factories sprung up together with a new phenomenon, industrial units and estates, all of which created a demand for metal work of a quite different dimension. Commissions arrived, con- nections were established and maintained not only in Sussex but further afield : Bristol, Devon and Cornwall (Fig. 3) and much of the south coast . Duct work for Spencer and Halstead, a sterling firm in Ossett, Yorkshire, specialising in first class ventilation and extraction systems, continued to be supplied by John Waller for much of their work in the south after his move to Portslade . Various metal work was Fig . 5 One of series of flambeaux in copper undertaken for Elliots at Sizewell such as protective manufactured by H .A. Waller & Sons in covers and duct work for "fettling" (the hitting and 1925 and still extant on premises formerly grinding of castings) . "Dust collectors" were provided of Stafford's department store on the corner and installed for open-cast coal mines; safety railings of Crown St . and Western Road, Brighton. for Tesco in Truro ; roofs, ventilating systems and a host of associated work left the workshops in In 1965 Henry Waller retired, though still managing Whitecross Street .